SEO: Spamming
How to effectively report competitor spam
Contributor Kaspar Szymanski outlines reasons why submitting a spam report against a competitor practicing "blackhat SEO" can be another tool in...
How independent reviews influence Google’s trust in your brand
Cultivating user reviews is an integral part of any search strategy, especially for local businesses. Columnist Pratik Dholakiya discusses the...
Law firms spamming Google My Business: Don’t trust your money or your life to them!
Many local businesses are guilty of violating Google My Business guidelines to game the system, and columnist Joy Hawkins has observed rampant...
Private blog networks: A great way to get your site penalized
Columnist Kevin Rowe explains what private blog networks (PBNs) are, how to identify them, and why you should steer...
13 outdated SEO tactics that should terrify you
In the spirit of Halloween, columnist Jeremy Knauff shares some frighteningly outdated SEO tactics that simply won't...
Google News spammed with drug spam, dating sites & more
Beware: The Google News health section is now filled with a lot of hacked content and...
Google warns against misusing links in syndication & large-scale article campaigns
If the primary purpose of distributing content is to gain links, both authors and publishers risk a Google...
Google: We sent 9M web spam messages in 2016, more than double 2015 total
While more messages were sent, Google said they received less than half the 2015 number of user-generated spam reports in 2016....
Is Google really keeping fake listings off Google Maps?
A recent study released by Google claims that fewer than 0.5% of local searches lead to fake listings. But is this number misleading? Columnist...
Why Google shutting down Map Maker should terrify SMBs
Contributor Joy Hawkins warns about the likely unintended consequences of Google's impending shutdown of Map Maker, calling for the search giant...
How to avoid an outbound link penalty from Google
We've all heard of unnatural link penalties from having a spammy backlink profile, but columnist Tony Edward notes that your site's outbound...
Hermit Crab SEO
You've heard of Barnacle SEO, but what about Hermit Crab SEO? Columnist Bryson Meunier sheds some light on this troubling black hat practice and...
SEO is as dirty as ever
Search engine optimization has built credibility over the years, but spammers and black-hat practitioners still give it a bad name. Columnist...
No, SEO isn’t “search engine manipulation” that Google will ban you for
In a legal statement, Google introduces the term "search engine manipulation" -- but think of it as a synonym for spam, not...
Got spam? Google My Business doesn’t care.
Seeing lots of spammy local listings on Google? It's not just you! Columnist Joy Hawkins notes some of the problems with Google's enforcement of...
Updated: Google penalizes mobile sites using sneaky redirects
Google takes action on mobile sites that trick users into being redirected to an unwanted website from the mobile search results page. This...
Google drops product rich snippets from airline pricing websites
Google confirmed they removed the ability for some airline sites, such as Trip Advisor and Expedia, to show product rich snippets in the search...
Google sent 4 million messages about search spam last year, saw 33% increase in clean-up requests
It is now even more important to verify your website in the Google Search Console, as you can see in Google's latest webspam...
10 tips for avoiding shady SEO providers
Got a sneaking suspicion the SEO company you hired might not be legit? Columnist Greg Gifford shares his list of red flags to look out...
Dear SEOs: Please stop spamming Google Maps!
Columnist Joy Hawkins gives a lesson in what NOT to do when optimizing Google My Business profiles, based on her experiences cleaning up spammy...
